Genkai's Regrets
by RainGoddessYume
Summary: What if Genkai was Yusuke's grandmother as well as his teacher? What is Shinobu Sensui was Yusuke's father and he was never allowed to know? This small 10 page blurb is what happens when a "what if" thought enters my head and my plot bunnies just run away with it. I did this purely because I wanted to believe it could have happened but no one knew about it.


Author's note: I decided that episode 66 of the dark tournaments conclusion and the summary of Togoro's choices along with Genkai's regret could stand to have more details. I decided to add more to the story because I wanted to believe that it could have happened but no one knew about it. Because I am using the script that the English actors spoke in the series I will have all the lines from the actual copyrighted episode **highlighted in bolded writing. **No copyright infringements are intended and everything belongs to their respective creators which is not me! I make no monies from this story.

"**He's here sir,**" George said with a grim tone.

"**Fine. Let him in,**" Koenma replied calmly. The door opened and the imposing man walked towards the desk at the end of the room. He stood before Koenma and said nothing. Koenma suddenly felt nervous and tugged on his shirt collar. When Togoro's silence continued Koenma spoke.

"**Time to find your place, Togoro. I've arranged a thorough evaluation of the facts,**" the prince began.

"**I don't think that's necessary,**" Togoro replied gruffly.

"**Oh no no no no. Quite to the contrary. In fact, yours is a very intricate case,**" Koenma said, hoping to show leniency.

"**I've already decided. I would like you to sentence me to limbo," **the former demon replied with firm certainty.

George cowered at Togoro's request. "**To limbo?**" he said in an outburst of complete disbelief.

Koenma stood up in his chair and tried to reason desperately with Togoro. "**You're asking me to send you there? Do you even know what limbo is?**" He plopped back down on his seat and continued to speak in a quieter tone as he shared his certain knowledge.** "Obviously you don't. Of all the destinations for parted spirits, it is by far the most horrific! Absolute misery! Every part of you sliced away except your ability to experience pain. 10,000 years of wishing you would just cease to exist and knowing that you won't,**" he finished morosely.

"**Good,**" Togoro said without emotion.

Koenma tried to negotiate, wanting to avoid enforcing such a horrific punishment. "**I've weighed your demon crimes against your human achievements and considering that Sakyo's plan ended partly because of you; a slight punishment will be sufficient. Please you do have time to reconsider this!**"

Togoro's eyes opened behind his sunglasses with a spark of determination. He had decided years ago exactly how he would die when he invited Yusuke to enter the tournament. No one would take away the punishment he knew he deserved, even craved. One could even argue that limbo would be a reprieve from the punishment he inflicted upon himself voluntarily for the past fifty years.

"**I've had far too much time. My choice is made,**" he said with hard determination.

Koenma sighed in defeat. "**Very well. I can't convince a man with a death wish. 10,000 years in limbo. Godspeed.**" He stamped his seal of approval on the document with great regret. "**Take him away, Ogre.**"

"**Yes sir,**" George replied grimly. As the ogre led Togoro out and away from Koenma's office, a strange reaper dressed in a black kimono walked through the wall. She spoke.

"**Mister Koenma sir? I tracked down the information you desired from records.**"

"**Really. And?**" he replied in a tone of dejected curiosity.

"**And you were right about the date of The Dark Tournament. It was exactly fifty years ago when Togoro became a demon, but that's not the interesting part."**

"**Hmm**," Koenma sighed.

"**Three months before that Dark Tournament began every single one of Togoro's young apprentices were massacred by the tournament's reigning champion.**"

"**The demon Kairen,**" The spirit prince said with glum remembrance.

"**Exactly sir. Kairen was the highest class of demon. A hateful black-hearted giant, a virtual immortal for the forgotten age. By that time Togoro had earned a powerful reputation as a demon killer. He built a dojo to train young fighters who had particular talents. When Togoro was away Kairen burst into the dojo and slew his relatively defenseless students. The Dark Tournament was nearing and Kairen wanted all the participants to fear him before it began. It was a sort of invitation.** **At the sight of his fallen students, Togoro flew into a maddening rage.**"

Koenma pondered this information. "**Yes. Togoro had believed himself the most powerful fighter, had he not? It was the first time he had been proven vulnerable,**" he said.

"**The records do support that sir. Togoro did not face Kairen that day, but disappeared into the wilderness for three months. The morning before the tournament he reappeared in front of his team. Genkai and the others. He seemed changed. Detached, possessed. He killed Kairen in the final round. As his prize, Togoro was made into a demon like Kairen,**" The reaper snapped her book shut. "**I don't understand the man's way of thinking sir. Why would he choose to become like the creature he most despised?**" she asked.

"**Hmm, well that's the million dollar question," **Koenma replied quietly. He continued,"**Perhaps it was guilt for not protecting his students. Even though he had avenged them, it wasn't enough. The only way to atone was to never be vulnerable again. Perhaps he wanted to become the monster he already felt himself to be? Perhaps he just afraid of loving someone? Perhaps he was just afraid of growing old?**" Koenma walked out of his office and onto the balcony, watching the imposing figure that was Togoro grow smaller in the shadow of the gate he had chosen.

"**Togoro is a complex case. He's like an anthill. The deeper you dig, the more tunnels appear and inside each of them is a creature ready to bite. Layer upon layer of bravado facades, contradicting desires and intensely wrought obsessions, but beneath it all, I suspect you would find just a normal man with a wounded heart and a broken dream,**" he finished solemnly.

The gate closed silently behind him, and Togoro walked on his chosen path. Genkai's spirit in her stunning youth stood up in the shadows. A memory came to him that he long wished he could bury and yet couldn't.

"**You did good in there, Genkai. Our teamwork is even more in tune now. It isn't going to take us much longer. Soon every fighter will know of our names.**"

"**And then what?**" she asked.

"**We go further. You're a beautiful girl, Genkai.**"

"**Thank you.** But that is not enough, is it? Your misery will not bring them back. We need to move forward."

"How can you say that, Genkai? Takeo and Sakura are no longer able to move forward because their fragile lives were stolen from them before their prime! I failed them all, but Takeo and Sakura trusted that nothing bad would ever happen to them. I failed them when they needed me the most. Kairen kept them alive long enough to kill them in front of me. They didn't even beg Kairen to spare their lives because they said, 'Our daddy will save us.' Do you know what it is like, Genkai? To feel so broken that you never want to move or feel again?" Angry tears welled up in his eyes, but Togoro refused to shed them. His voice thick with emotion he finished, "**I can't help but think our human lives are nothing but a cruel joke. Here long enough just to know what we want and then it erodes **in a split second."

"Do you not think I haven't suffered as greatly as you? I was their _mother_! I carried them and no man could ever understand the acute pain a woman feels at the death of her child. My lot was even worse than you could possibly imagine. I had to bury not only my two children that day but my husband as well. The Togoro that stands before me is nothing but an empty shell of the man he once was. A ghostly husk of the one I loved."

The memory faded when he saw the look on his lover's face as she stood on the path in front of him.

"**Don't tell me you're surprised? You knew I would choose to go this way.**"

"**You're right. I did know. After that day on the river, I knew how everything would end and yet I couldn't stop it. **I made the choice to continue living, to grow old. I made the choice that you were too chicken-shit scared to make," she stooped to pick up a small pebble.

"**You're a hopeless dim-wit. You realize that?**" She walked towards him. "**You just love to wallow in your own ridiculous suffering. Kairen is the one who killed **our** kids, not you. Don't you think you've blamed yourself enough already for not being perfect? Haven't you blamed me enough too?**" She broke the pebble in her hand in half. "**You trapped yourself in a body you hated, hiding in the pain and now you want to torture yourself again for eternity! Why? Haven't we both paid enough?**"

Togoro stood silently while he contemplated his answer that was fifty years in the making. He knew that Genkai would return to the living world because he couldn't risk her following after him in an effort to convince him to change his mind. There was no happily ever after waiting for him. He spoke harshly.

"**You're wrong. All that business delighted me. Murdering Kairen. Knowing that I was the most powerful. It was through my fear of Kairen that I pushed forward to meet my ultimate potential. I understood my power and was free from human baggage.**" He winced mentally at the look on her face but continued without hesitation,"**And in the larger scheme I knew the part I had to play. I am actually thankful for what Kairen did.**"

"**Liar!**" she shouted hopelessly.

"**Don't mourn me, Genkai. Like you said, this is the way I wanted it to end.**" He walked past her. "**Don't stay here trying to figure me out. You have a job to do. Your apprentice Urameshi, he can still be stronger but he could go the wrong way too. Like me. Maybe he will actually listen to you the way I could not.**" He continued to walk away from her.

"Wait. Togoro you need to know something, I need you to tell you something," Genkai called to him.

"It's all right Genkai. I already know. You don't need to tell me. I understand why you gave her up, and I made sure that Atsuko was safe because I made it impossible for you to protect her. Why do you think I wanted to wait for Yusuke to grow up? Waiting for Yusuke to grow powerful enough was the only way I could atone for my mistakes. My cowardice. Watch over him Genkai, he will need your help now more than ever. You sensed his presence at the tournament, the one who was pulling Sakyo's strings, Shinobu Sensui. His energy is very similar to Yusuke's."

"I did feel him," she replied simply. She continued, thinking to herself. _It is impossible to notice that Yusuke takes after the three of us the most_. Genkai visibly aged at this observation. Silently, she remembered the months before and after Yusuke's birth. Atsuko had been so happy with the school girl notion of being a mother at such a tender age but she was in love. How quickly her mother saw that love fade when the man she thought had loved them abandoned her and her newborn. Genkai had been walking in the street one day several months later. She saw Atsuko sitting on a park bench.

"You look ready to pass out, my girl. Don't you have anyone to help you?"

"No," Atsuko replied with a dead hollowed tone. "The baby doesn't sleep unless I take him out of the apartment."

"It seems he takes after his mother then. I have seen the way you would walk outside before he was born. Did you just need the fresh air too?" Genkai asked.

"I guess. Or rather my parents kicked me out when they found out I was pregnant and I was still in high school. I had no place to sleep until I found my job after my boyfriend left us."

"Oh, I see. What is the baby's name?" Genkai asked quietly.

"Yusuke. Not that it should matter to you." Atsuko chuckled, took a large gulp from the bottle of scotch in her hand and puffed on her cigarette, blowing the smoke right into Genkai's face.

"I imagine he hates the apartment because he can't stand the smell," Genkai coughed harshly hurt by her daughter's choices. It was true that Genkai had given her Atsuko to someone else to raise, but that didn't stop her words from stinging her.

"What do you know, you old hag?! You sound just like my mother." Atsuko puffed some more smoke in Genkai's face. "Where do you get off lecturing me how to live? You don't know a damn thing about me."

She continued after taking a long pull on her almost empty bottle. "Or maybe you do know exactly what it is like to have your boss offer you the apartment over his grocery store because he pretends to be concerned about you, but all he wants to come and have sex with you night after night because you happen to be a woman of loose morals. Because you were once a high school drop-out with a baby to feed and shelter. The baby does nothing but cry while that man is there in his mother's bed. But does that bother _Him_? _No_! He wears earplugs so he can ignore the screaming baby just to get his rocks off and now Yusuke won't sleep even after he leaves because he knows that man will be back the next night and the next night and the night after that. And why wouldn't he be there? It is his apartment after all and that means he owns everything inside, including me."

"I am sorry my girl, but alcohol and smoking won't solve that problem. If you want to get out of this mess, then stand up for yourself and don't take anyone's bullshit anymore," Genkai said gruffly standing up.

"Don't even _care that you pretend_! Just get up and walks away 'fore I gets really _mad_!" Atsuko slurred her jumbled words unhappily as she curled up on the park bench and sobbed.

Genkai walked away without further word. Fury driving her steps, she made her way to the small grocery store where she had seen Atsuko working as a shelf stocking girl. It was almost dawn and her daughter was sleeping on a park bench because she couldn't bear the thought of going home. That was going to change. Like a ghost, she climbed the stairs without making a creak. She let herself in after checking the door and seeing that it was unlocked. The sound of loud snoring greeted her from the bedroom furthest down the cramped hallway. The bedroom door had been left open and a disgusting sight greeted her eyes.

A balding, fat, middle-aged man lay on his stomach naked, obviously quite content with himself, farting and belching as he slept. Genkai's heart ached with shame for not having seen this problem sooner. Funneling her spirit energy into her fists she waited until the years melted off her face, leaving her to look like a young handsome girl of twenty-two.

Approaching the bed she gave the man a solid whack to the head, startling him awake. He sputtered and demanded to know why she was there. All she did was kick his pants on the floor into his face and demand that he get dressed. Becoming scared, the man did as he was told. Chanting, she ran her fingers over his wrists and bound them together with spirit cuffs.

Leading him out the door and down the stairs, Genkai made him open up his store and forced him to empty the cash drawer of everything. Unsatisfied with the small amount in the till, she walked him into the back room. Seeing a small safe tucked in the corner behind a desk she made him open it. When he did she discovered much larger bills in bigger quantities.

"Put everything in the sack," she demanded.

"Do it yourself! I will have the cops find you if it is the last thing I do! Who the hell do you think you are giving me orders?" he yelled down at her.

"I am your worst nightmare," Genkai growled menacingly. "I have come to punish you for the way you use people to your own ends. I will make sure that you will suffer for your crimes."

"I am an upstanding citizen. I don't take advantage of anyone! I volunteer in the community and I coach little league" he denied in a mocking self-righteous tone.

"Well aren't you quite the self-proclaimed image of sainthood?" she mocked in return. "You are a liar and a thief preying on those weaker than yourself. _You disgust me_!" Without further warning she bound his ankles with more of her energy, stood him up against the wall and began to beat the snot out of him. Finally, satisfied that his recovery would be an agonizing one, and ensuring that he was unconscious to the point of near comatose, Genkai rummaged through the store until she found a can of aerosol spray paint. With bright red paint, she wrote the man's confession for him.

_I've raped young girls repeatedly for months. I can no longer live with my guilt._

Admiring her handiwork, Genkai put the final detail into place by removing the man's pants so that he was naked once again. Chucking the spray can into the bag with the money, she slipped out of the store and back to the park just as the sky turned from grey to pink with the promise of a beautiful morning. Her age once again apparent on her face, Genkai darted back to the park and the park bench where she had left Atsuko and Yusuke. The tortured young girl mumbled incoherent nonsense in her alcohol induced slumber. Yusuke mewled softly in his car seat from the cold morning air. Slipping her warm coat over him, he went back to sleep instantly. Walking to the entrance of the park she hailed down a cab on the street asked the driver to come and help her carry the young woman. Both mother and son were tucked into the back seat and Genkai sat in front with the driver.

"Where to Ms.?" he asked as he avoided asking the more obvious questions.

"Someplace warm. With a bed and good food," the haggard-looking woman replied. "Keep your mouth shut and you will be well paid."

When Atsuko finally awoke she was in a hotel room in a warm bed. With one hand Genkai handed her a glass of cool water and aspirin. In her other arm she balanced her grandson and a warm bottle. Silently, Atsuko took glass and downed it along with the medicine.

"Why did you do this for me?" Atsuko asked as the strange woman sat down and began feeding her son.

"Because I am just an old hag with a sentimental heart. Call me crazy, but I don't think a young woman with a baby should sleep on a park bench. So I brought you someplace safe. Are you hungry?"

"Starving! Oh, but still nauseous."

"Have some more water and the nausea will go away in no time. In the meantime, I can order room service. What would you like?" Genkai asked in a kind and sympathetic tone.

"I do like eggs and bacon. Can I have pancakes too? I haven't had them since my parents kicked me out, and I have been craving them." Genkai nodded and made the phone call ordering enough for both of them. After breakfast had been eaten, Genkai prepared to leave but Atsuko stopped her.

"Where will I go from here?"

"I don't know. Where you go from here is up to you."

"Will you not stay and help me?" Atsuko pleaded. Genkai almost lost her resolve looking into her daughter's eyes, but fought to keep her judgment unclouded.

"No. I won't stay but I am helping you by giving you this one piece of advice. What you have suffered will not be easy to recover from, but the effort you make is your decision. What you do with your life from here is up to you and I will never interfere again. I am however leaving you enough money to get started in a different direction. Use it wisely or not; this is all I can ever offer you. I am sorry for that but that is the way things must be." Holding Yusuke close one last time, Genkai handed the infant back to his mother and walked out the door without a second glance.

Genkai kept her promise and continued to watch Atsuko from afar. It seemed as if she turned her life around. She quit drinking and stopped smoking. Her face glowed with the happiness of a woman who was content with her lot in life. She had a beautiful son and another little one on the way thanks to that good for nothing grocer. She was a single mother, but she loved her son and her new daughter with all her heart. Then tragedy struck. One day the paramedics arrived at Atsuko's apartment. It was too late. Her little girl Kyoko had died in the middle of the night. The cause was unknown. All of a sudden the little baby just stopped breathing in her sleep. Something inside Atsuko broke and she never fully recovered. She turned to the bottle once again in an effort to drown her pain. Cigarette smoke was once again her perfume. The old psychic watched the baby's funeral from behind a tree at the end of the graveyard. Her heart ached with emptiness from not being able to comfort her daughter from a loss she know only too well. Her arms ached from the loss of the little granddaughter she never got to hold. Why was life so cruel?

Genkai pushed those memories away but she could stop her eyes from welling up with tears as she looked up at Togoro.

"What could my innocent grandson possibly have done to deserve such a cruel fate as this? One day to have a mother who loved him and his sister more than anything and the next to have it all ripped away. Trying to fill that dark void with nothing but thoughts of violence against all those who opposed him." Genkai's tears now flowed freely as she continued, "To be forced into killing his grandfather in combat and now quite possibly have his life depend on defeating the man who fathered him? Why must he continue to lose the ones who are supposed to love him?"

She sighed as her thoughts continued grimly. _My poor Atsuko, you had to suffer the mistakes of your mother without my even being in your life. I had to protect you the only way I knew how and that was to make sure you never knew me. I could only watch your suffering from a distance and never become involved._

Genkai called out to Togoro one last time. "**You really care about Yusuke. In your own screwed-up way you've been teaching him** from your mistakes** too. He is like a son to me, **because I actually got to be involved in his life.** Maybe you think the same**, huh? Had life been kinder to us we might have been able to help love and raise him together like proper grandparents should. Don't you ever feel regret for what happened between us after the tournament all those years ago?"

He removed his sunglasses and turned to face her with a small sad smile. She deserved better from him but this answer was the best he could give her. "**No Genkai, **I don't feel regret,** but it would have been a beautiful life.**" He walked away.

"**You really are a big-hearted fool.**"

Genkai walked towards Koenma's office and the years returned to her face and voice.

"**Okay. Open up,**" Genkai ordered the doors.

"**Remarkable.**"

"**What is, sir? The age difference?**"

"**No, you dolt. I'm just realizing the extent of Togoro's planning. He had everything covered before the finals even started,**" Koenma pondered what Togoro had said after he killed Genkai.

"**If Urameshi wins this tournament it's clear what his wish will be, but I am afraid the Tournament Committee might not be in perfect health this year. The responsibility, Koenma, might fall on you. Take good care of Genkai's body. Just a friendly piece of advice.**"

"**On the surface it seemed that Sakyo was the one pulling the strings in the tournament but hindsight tells us another story. Togoro was the real puppeteer.**" Koenma marveled at how well this plan had been thought out. He was also glad that he took Togoro's advice and kept Genkai's body in a safe place.

"Well come along, Genkai. Apparently it just was not your time yet. We will have to hurry before the reabsorption process becomes impossible."

Yusuke stared out at the ocean. "**You know I am actually gonna miss this stupid place.**"

"**It feels like we've been here for years,**" Kuwabara said.

"**Losing someone can do that**…" Botan started but Kuwabara muffled her with his hand over her mouth.

"**Ix-nay on the Enkai-gay. It took us all morning just to get Urameshi out of his room.**"

"**Okay, okay,**" she mumbled through his palm.

"**Oh looky here, our ship has arrived. Isn't that happy?**" Kuwabara said with no real conviction.

"**Back to skipping detentions,**" Yusuke said

"**And video games,**" Kuwabara added longingly.

"**My human mother,**" Kurama sighed contentedly.

"**Various crimes,**" Hiei said glibly.

"**All right, let's go home!**" Yusuke shouted.

Botan and Kuwabara cheered along with Yusuke, trying too hard to keep the energy up.

"**Well excuse me if I am a little insulted!**" an all too familiar voice said from behind them. The cheering stopped abruptly.

"**Hold on a sec,**" Yusuke said.

Genkai walked towards them.

"**You just gonna leave the old fossil behind?**"

Yusuke gulped in shock as Botan ran to her shouting, "**Genkai, I don't believe it!**"

"**You're?….hey she's really alive!**" Kuwabara shouted happily. Yusuke still stood unmoving from shock.

Everyone gather around her laughing. "**You must have rubbed off on me, dim-wit. I died like you. Half-assed!**" she said teasingly.

"**Uh Genkai?**" Yusuke said still trying to process the scene in front of him. Running to her he shouted with joy. "**Genkai! Come here you beautiful hag!**"

Genkai embraced her apprentice grandson, not allowing her lonely thoughts to show. _I will protect you Yusuke even if that means I have to protect you from yourself and your laziness. You won't believe it, but you have made this old woman very happy. That is why I you can never know about where you come from. Your destiny will obviously not be an easy path. But no matter what happens tomorrow I can allow myself this one indulgence for just this one moment. This one moment only_. She sighed in contentment.


End file.
